So Long and Thanks for the Fruit
by NateSean
Summary: Prot bails Gene and his family off of planet Earth while an alien race gets ready to destroy it. A KPAXHitchhiker's Guide crossover.
1. Chapter One

So long and thanks for the Fruit

A crossover

Written by Nathanielle Crawford

Inspired by Gene Brewer's K-PAX trilogy

Also Inspired by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

With a few twists added by Nathanielle Crawford

These twists are added with love for both the late great Adams and the early great Brewer

On with the story

Chapter One

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has over four million, sixty-three thousand, five-hundred and twenty-one entries about K-PAX and dremers including entries from the dremers themselves. The following is an entry from a very earlier edition of The Guide, from back when human's earliest ancestors were still gasping for oxygen after crawling out of their primordial ooze.

_Deep in the constellation Lyra, swinging in a pendulum like fashion around the twin stars K-MON and K-RILL is a lively little purple planet known to its inhabitants as K-PAX. Given their lack of government and their instinctive need to balance with the rest of the environment, the arguably more advanced species of this world, the dremers, do not claim dominance in spite of being the current evolutionary incarnation of their race._

_A race of hitch hiker's themselves one can only imagine how anyone would trust a dremer given that they never bring a towel with them wherever they go. This does, however, seem consistent with their universal arrogance in assuming that they are in fact superior to all life forms they come across. For billions of years dremers have been contributing editors to the previous editions of the Guide. (however we have no names to go with their entries since the dremers do not believe in fame and recognition) Their character based classification system has been embraced by many species for determining the safety of a planet before attempting to travel there._

_Another noteworthy accomplishment of the dremers is their use of single humanoid light-based travel. While most species continue to use spaceships to ferry themselves and others across the galaxy dremers harness a single beam of light, which allows them to beam from one planet to another almost instantly. (Backward time travel is also needed to insure the rules of relativity, however this in and of itself has been the cause of many angry misunderstandings between dremers and other races including the Vogons. Imagine how angry you'd be if you just got a massive pay of for a thousand galactic dollar a day job destroying a system of planets where a freeway was supposed to go, only to have some meddling backward time traveler visit the system in the past, petition for its protection and prevent you from doing the job before you even started it)_

_Perhaps this is another reason for the lack of overwhelming universal love for the hairless apes. Dremers have no government themselves and have never needed one. For this reason they mirror beam from planet to planet with little or no regards as to the government policy or territorial agreements of other races. And true to their natures they won't skip a beat while they tell a species what it's doing wrong and how long they have until they destroy themselves. Perhaps this is also the reason why many worlds, (including the ordinarily tolerant Alpha Centaurians) refuse to invite any dremers to interplanetary mixers which are often held on Tau-Ceti 6 when the air is breathable every seven hundred years._

_

* * *

_

So help me I couldn't stay away for long. Karen understood as always, so we made a day of it. After all, who can resist a day in Manhattan for twenty-four hours? We had lunch at the Asti, our usual place. I sang off key, caught a ball of dough in my mouth, and even got Karen to overcome her stage fright and participate in the chorus.

Then we went down to the wharf and took the tour of the Intrepid. Prot would have complained the whole way of course. The Intrepid was one of our country's most famous airline carriers, and its top deck was full of recon jets, fighters, and other planes I had no name for.

"What do you think it's like up there?" Karen asked, conversationally.

"Where?"

"K-PAX, silly," Karen laughed as we walked along deck.

I stopped at the stern and leaned against the rails. The waterfront was very pretty here, even if it was mostly concrete, pavement and glass.

"Well it has to be pretty dark," I supposed. "Their suns only rise once every two hundred years. I wouldn't be surprised if it was like the Alaska of the galaxy."

"Do you ever regret not taking prot up on his offer?"

"Of course not," I said with a shrug. "Where on K-PAX can you find a decent stake dinner?"

It was so strange to be talking about this with my wife. It had been at least five years since we all saw prot, Robert, Giselle, Junior (Their baby, and my namesake) two patients and a few of the cats from MPI all disappear in a beam of light, taking with them the hundred beings that prot promised could go with them. The following weeks were a buzz of media activity and government investigations, but thankfully I was no longer in the works. Sure a secret service agent asked me a few questions, and why wouldn't they? I was the author of three books about my beloved problem patient, (and thanks to some dedicated fanfiction authors I was still collecting royalties from newly initiated fans of the books) and there was also a movie based on K-PAX. But I had retired that very week and now my son William and his wife owned the home where Karen and I spent many wonderful years in marriage.

Did I believe they went to K-PAX, many people often asked me wherever I went. "Is he really an alien?" "Did he tell you how to mirror beam?" "Did he take you in his space ship?" That last question has been asked of me by many people who did not read my books, but watched the many CNN debates and garnered from the discussions that prot must have at least had some kind of space ship.

It was also strange to be considered a celebrity wherever I went. I did, after all, have the pleasure of knowing prot and his host Robert Porter for seven years before they finally went home. And I always went with the classic psychiatric standby every time they popped one of the questions: "What do _you_ think?"

"Do you think he'll ever show up again?" Karen asked. "Prot I mean."

I gave her a side long glance and grinned impishly, "What do _you_ think?"

She playfully punched me in the shoulder. We left the Intrepid and made an obligatory stop at Ground Zero memorial park. I was certainly glad prot hadn't been here on this day. Somehow I doubt his "I told you so" attitude in regards to the lack of human conscience and regard for life would have pleased too many people. Not that I wouldn't have agreed with him, at least this once. After that we went shopping in some of Karen's favorite stores, including the Disney store and a few kiosks along the streets.

"When do you want to visit MPI?" Karen asked when we stopped at the van to drop off some bags.

"I called Will and he said he'd be off at four-thirty today. I told him we'd give him a ride back to Connecticut so we could catch up on times. But if you don't mind I'd sort of like to stop there a little early. Some of my colleagues wouldn't mind seeing me again and it'd be nice to catch up with some of them if they aren't too busy."

"Not at all, Gene, honey." Karen gave me a peck on the cheek. "There are still a few stores I'd like to check out that I doubt you'd be comfortable in."

Karen gave me a wink that assured me that I would be happy letting her off on her own. She was no stranger to Manhattan after all, and I didn't worry as much as some husbands might about leaving my wife to fend for her out here.

"Have fun," I said when we split up at the corner. "Meet you at the garage."

The walk to MPI from where we were parked was definitely a workout. Whenever Manhattan or any other city shows up in the movies people seem to think all of our major landmarks and attractions are within spitting distance of one another. (And yes, by now MPI was definitely one of the two) Everyone drives across Brooklyn Bridge, you can see the Empire state building from every apartment, and superheroes can jump from building top to building top without anyone so much as blinking an eye. But in real life when you want to get from place to place you rely on public transportation or the leather express. I chose the latter.

I hadn't been down these streets since my retirement from MPI. Will told me about the occasional new developments that went on. How the Chinese restaurant me and Karen used to go for lunch burned down, and about the Ground Zero Memorial Park the city decided on in lieu of a new Trade Center to be built in the place of the old ones. Some of Fred's performances were in New York, but they would through Connecticut on tour so we always waited till then to see him.

It felt good to be among the crowds of people, the sometimes daunting skyscrapers, the smells of hot dog stands and carbon monoxide and the lights of the neon signs flashing were all familiar to me again. The sun had long since passed over head, and now streets were as dark and cold as if it were evening during the winter, but it didn't bother me because I knew this place so well. I bought a pretzel in spite of myself and gave the change to a homeless man who stood nearby. Then, after taking a few detours to do some window shopping, I arrived at the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute.

The Villers Wing was up and functioning. I ran into Doctor Goldfarb in the vestibule. She was still the director of the facility and still as beautiful as she was dedicated. She was overjoyed with finally having the chance to beg me, in person, to do what she'd been trying to get me to do for the last five years over the phone.

"No," I said, smiling as I did it. "Those times were great and I'll never forget them. I did my best with each and every patient, especially prot, and I hope I've done some good during my time here. But my days of being a psychiatrist are over."

"You mean you never thought of starting your own practice?" Dr. Goldfarb asked. "You could do it out of your own home and prevent so many people from having to come here."

"And what about the twenty dozen other people that come here after I'm gone?"

"Your son will take care of them." She said, changing gears. "He's a chip off the old block, you know. Even pulled a few miracles out of his hat, the likes of which our star patient hasn't even pulled off."

"Really?" I asked, baffled. "First I've heard of it."

"Well, he's got your modesty too."

Goldfarb rarely gushes over people, at least to the level of sincerity that she was doing now. If I hadn't known her as well as I do I'd almost have said she was buttering me up by complimenting my son. As if on cue William came from the Villers ward whistling to the tune of "The Rain in Spain" from _My Fair Lady._ I didn't even know he'd watched that movie. He seemed so much like the boy who spent his summers as an orderly here, our baby as Karen still called him. He wore the standard required out fit. Black khakis, a blazer, white shirt and tie, but dammit he looked great in it all. And he carried himself with an air of confidence and good humor that you just didn't expect see in our field.

"Dad!" He said, shamelessly tackling me with a hug. A few visitors reared back in terror, thinking William to be some escaped lunatic. I couldn't help but laugh. "It's great to see you out here."

"It's good to see you too son."

William pulled back. "Goldfarb, how are you?"

"I'm fine Will. I take it your session with Audrey went well?"

"Better than ever."

"Great, I'll see you at tomorrow's staff meeting." Goldfarb turned to me and smiled. "I'll leave you too alone. It's great to see you again Gene."

I walked with Will up to his office. I was surprised to see he didn't have mine.

"Oh, they've squared that off now," Will explained once I pointed it out. "Goldfarb got the idea to bring a few tourists up there once in a while to take pictures of it."

I rolled my eyes. "You have to be kidding me."

"'Fraid not Dad. The door has a new name panel and everything. They've got a little museum of all of prot's stuff, and pictures of Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges signed by the actors all over the place."

"How come you never told me about all this?" I asked, incredulous.

"Well, because it was my idea…" Will responded to my look of surprise. "Goldfarb asked for ideas for fundraising at a meeting. I didn't think you'd mind. And anyway the tourist money alone has paid for the Villers Wing a hundred times over at least. We can afford more orderlies, better equipment and we were even able to upgrade our computers and security systems a few times."

I shook my head and snickered.

"What can I say kid?" I said affectionately. "I'm proud of you…Doctor Brewer."

"Thanks Doctor Brewer," Will replied, grinning as he pulled his trench coat on. "Hey, you want to see it?"

"See what?"

"Your old office." Will pointed up. "I'm right below it. It's great to take students up there and brag to them about my dad and his beloved alien symbiote."

What can I say? I took Will up on his offer. What I had no way of knowing of course was that my alien symbiote would be waiting for me in his usual spot. As Will showed me the familiar elevator and the painted red arrows leading to the "tourist" room, I was unaware that prot had spent the last ten minutes mirror beaming across the planet, picking up Karen, Fred, Abbey, my son in law Steven, my grandkids, their grandchild, my dog, and Gunnar Jenson and Roman Kowalski. Joyce Trexler's office was the same as always, with photos from the movie and copies of the books on sale in a little bookshelf near the window. Shirts, shorts, sweaters and other memorabilia with Kevin Spacey's face on it also hung from racks. (Hey, in Transylvania they have entire shops dedicated to Dracula related items. What makes here any different right?) As Will opened the door, there he was. Sunglasses and everything, sitting in the chair with the plaque situated beneath it.

"How's it going doctor…er doctors?" prot asked, standing up and turning to face us. "What, no fruit?"

As I said, I couldn't have expected to see my favorite problem patient here in the place where I had seen him on and off for an three hours a week. I couldn't have expected any of it, but here he was in the flesh. Prot still looked just like Robert. Same build, same hair and eyes, and he wore pretty much the same outfit. Corduroys,

"Robert sends his best wishes," prot said, right on cue. "As do Giselle and the rest. But I'm afraid we have no time for pleasantries."

"Why am I so calm right now?" I asked, sending a glance in Will's direction.

"Got me," Will said, equally as undisturbed by prot's presence. "How's it going man?"

"It's going," prot responded. "And it's going to keep going if we don't get off this PLANET."

"Off the planet?" This time I was a tad unnerved. "Prot what's going on-"

"All right, I guess I have to give you the rundown don't I," prot looked up. "We've got about ten minutes for me to explain this, so sit down geno. We're about to have the quickest session in your career. You can sit too willy, after all, you're the king of the roost now."

I don't know what was going through our minds right now, but like a puppet on command I sat in my usual chair across from prot. There was a plaque beneath mine too. It read: This is the seat where the famous Gene Brewer interviewed many of his patience and delivered top of the line psychiatric care. But he was never more famous for his work before meeting prot, the alien symbiote from the planet K-PAX.

"All right prot," Will said. "What brings you back to Earth?"

"It's destruction," prot answered as calmly as if we had just asked him if Gene Jr was doing well.

"Destruction?" I said, confused. "I know we're on the verge of extinction like you think we are, but seriously-"

"Oh no geno. Not from you guys this time. Earth is about to be obliterated by another race that wants to build an Interstellar freeway."

Our mouths hung open. Will and I exchanged looks of confusion.

"Prot, I thought you said no other race would ever destroy another one," I pointed out. "And yes, I remember our sessions very well. You said, and I'm quoting you, 'any race that would destroy another race inevitably destroys themselves.'"

"You would be quite correct my dear sir," prot said, leaning forward. "Most races that willingly destroy anyone or anything else do destroy themselves. But that doesn't stop them from getting into space now does it?"

"So you're saying this race that wants to destroy us…they're mirror beamers too?" Will asked. He had the same professional calm of a psychiatrist, as if he were in fact interviewing a patient to gage his mental state.

"No," prot answered. "They're not sane enough to develop mirror beaming yet. They're a lot like you homosapians in many ways. These guys are a part of a pretty big galactic government that has existed since the beginning of life on K-PAX."

Now I was really confused.

"Look, there's not much time to explain it all now," prot said, becoming antsy. "I've actually been here for a while keeping an eye on these people and trying to see if they were serious or not."

"Serious about what exactly?" I asked. "Just lay it all out for is, bluntly if you have to. Why do these...beings, want to destroy us so badly?"

"They don't want to destroy you exactly," prot said. "They're contractors, you see. The galactic government hires them to destroy PLANETS, clear out ASTEROID FIELDS, and collapse STARS in order to make room for urban construction projects. Trouble is EARTH is in the way of a major interstellar bypass that they want to put into place here. The vogons were the lowest bidders so they got contract and now they're parked in orbit.

"And yes, geno, I know what you'll say. No I can't read your mind, but you're just as predictable now as you were seven of your years ago. It is true that space travel by way of space ship is utterly futile and useless. But some beings have found a way to travel through space in the same way that we dremers mirror beam, and at the same time use their variously designed space ships. It's pointless and utterly stupid to us dremers, since we can go straight from breathable planet to breathable planet, and not even worry about the unnecessary danger of asphyxiation when the oxygen/boron/methane levels on a ship fall below the safety level. I'd love to stay and chat about this more. But we now have nine minutes and thirty-three seconds to reach minimal safe distance."

Again, I exchanged looks with Will. Neither of us could have expected this but it wasn't like we were completely surprised. Here we were about to be hijacked by the "star patient" of MPI and we had no way of knowing whether or not we should believe him. Prot seemed to sense our hesitation and he added, "I've got your family safely away. Giselle is explaining things to them right now, so they won't be too disturbed by the occurrence."

"They're on K-PAX?" Will asked, wide eyed.

"Nope, wasn't enough time," prot answered. "I sent them to FLORA. It's a tad wet there and no human has ever been to their WORLD before, but the florins are willing to take care of you for a little while. We have to hurry though."

"Well, what do we do about the Vogons?"

I looked up at will. He was dead serious. I could see the look of dread in his face that replaced his jovial attitude.

"What about our planet, our people…all the furry beings and great produce you love so much?"

Prot let out a sigh. It seemed very uncharacteristic of him. He looked at me.

"That's why I came to you geno," he said. "We have two shots at keeping the earth a safe and happy place for your beings to destroy yourselves later on."

"Well gee, thanks prot." I replied, crossing my arms.

"I mean it. But in order to accomplish this we'll need to hurry. Will you come with me now, before it's too late?"

It was my turn to sigh. But I turned to Will before making my decision.

"You're the doctor," I told him. "What do you want to do?"

Will looked to me, then to prot, then to the windows outside. "Uh…Dad, I think you should check this out."

I got up and went to the window. Manhattan is no stranger to UFO sightings. One in particular appeared a few times as segments on several TV shows. But what we saw now wasn't some isolated event getting caught on tape by some tourist and handed over to the Lords of Syndicated Television land. Four or five disk shaped "ships" were lowering themselves slowly out of the atmosphere. If I had to guess at their size I'd say maybe one third the size of the disc shaped vessels in Independence Day. My heart pounded and adrenaline was pumping faster than I could possibly control.

"Dad?" Will placed a hand on my shoulder. "Dad, are you okay."

"I don't know son," I said, honestly. Something happened in my lower extremities that I didn't expect. To be blunt, I was wetting my pants. "Oh no."

"Debate time's over." Prot pulled something out of his pants pocket. It was a flat wide device, like a remote control, with a cylindrical dish and a bulb. It was black with hundreds of little buttons in some kind of sequence I couldn't understand. A puddle was forming at my feet, ruining my shoes and the fine carpet of my office…and I didn't care. I was terrified.

"Will, you're going to FLORA with your wife and family."

"Is she okay?" Will asked, as concerned for his own budding family as he was for me.

"They're all fine as far as I know," prot said, remembering the importance humans placed in their family members. "In any case giselle, robert and a few friends are there to help them."

Without another word prot pointed the device at will and will just disappeared. I was glad because my office was starting to smell like a men's room, and I was red with shame.

"Don't worry," prot said, placing a hand on my shoulder and speaking in his most soothing voice. "It's a normal biological reaction to fear and terror."

Before I could respond prot pressed another sequence of buttons and pointed it at me.

"What are we doing?" I asked, frightened.

Prot grinned that Cheshire cat grin of his. "Stick your thumb out geno. We're hitching a ride."


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

In one of the entries on dremers, there is a "See this" link in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It leads to this entry on Earth.

_Earth has been visited several times in the last thirty years. It is considered a relatively backward world where universal happiness is equated with the passing of multi-colored pieces of paper that they exchange for little digital watches, which they spend their waking hours paying more attention to than they do one another._

_Only a few hitch hikers who have had the misfortune to find themselves stranded on Earth were very noteworthy. And let's face it; most hitchhikers who hit Earth are doomed to remain there for sometimes fifteen to thirty years at the most. Only two travelers in particular have documented Earth in its fullest capacity, and only one of those travelers have truly expanded our limited understanding of this backward blue and green world made of water and mud. This person was a dremer, from the planet K-PAX, a forward purple and even purpler world made of dirt, plants, dirt, and plants._

_This particular dremer compiled a rather tumultuous volume of information on the nuances of Earth's dominant species, the homosapiens._(See prot's Prognosis) _Naturally, owing to the nature of dremers, prot's forecast on the planet was it's own inevitable destruction._

* * *

I woke up in a dark room. I didn't realize I had fallen asleep. It was cold but not uncomfortable. Like a small child I reached down and touched my pants, feeling the dampness. I knew it was a perfectly human reaction and that I could have done worse. Perhaps the embarrassment was what cushioned me against the shock of leaving Earth. Dim lights went on suddenly, and I found prot sitting beside me with another device in his hand. He gave it to me. It was flat and grayish and looked like a scientific calculator from Texas Instruments. On the cover was a simple phrase in large white letters, written in perfect English that read; Don't Panic!

Where was that advice a few minutes ago?

"What's this?" I asked.

"The Guide," prot answered. "I love you geno, but I do get tired of explaining things to you from time to time."

I slipped the cover off and examined the device. There was a flat multicolored screen with the words, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Edition 1,490,321,200,569,001 in big animated text. Below the screen were dozens of tiny crystals illuminated by a light source inside. There were letter keys all in Roman characters and arranged in standard keyboard fashion, and below them were number keys arranged like a standard calculator. Along the side were extra buttons for different functions of The Guide. (IE Scrolling, page skipping, selecting, etc.)

"I was hard pressed to find a copy in your language geno," prot went on. "Unfortunately the Galactic Government is even worse than you homosapiens. Things cost money."

"Prot, none of this is making any sense," I said, looking at him. "You told me that no one in the galaxy believes in a government, and that only the ones who abolish it every really advance. Now we have a species ready to destroy Earth and-"

"Not ready to destroy it," prot corrected. "_Have_ destroyed it."

"WHAT!" I shouted.

"Calm down gene," prot said, soothingly. It was amazing how our positions had changed suddenly. Here I was, the terrified patient and prot was the psychologist trying to put me at ease. "You're gonna need a Thorazine drip in a moment. To clarify, the Earth was destroyed exactly when I said it would be. But I was able to work something out with the mirror beam coordinators on K-PAX and FLORA. We've been transported back in time one week to before the destruction of your PLANET."

Now my mind was really reeling. It seemed like prot was going out of his way to answer questions I hadn't even asked yet, which only raised more questions. I desperately needed a fix on reality before I went any further.

"Okay…so, if I go down there now I'll run into myself just before I came to Manhattan?"

"Yes and no," prot said. "_IF _you were to go down there you might run into yourself. But the laws of temporal physics say that it's not such a good idea. As is we've all ready broken a few laws when I hitched a ride on this vogon transport."

"Vogon?"

"Yes, the vogons. We are now parked just above EARTH right now and they are only hours away from blasting your PLANET into dust."

That did it. I jumped up and grabbed prot by the shoulders.

"I've had enough of this crap prot! We're not back at MPI anymore, it's not my job to keep asking you questions until you decide to spill the whole story with me. My planet's going to be destroyed? Fine, I get that. But I want to know why and I want to know why you didn't tell me about the Galactic Federation in all these years."

To his credit prot didn't seemed the least bit shocked or unnerved by my outburst. The years spent on Earth with Robert Porter must have taught him a thing or two about human behavior. Doubtless in his time traveling from Zaire, to Montanna, to everywhere else in the world he had seen some pretty violent emotions. I let him go and sank back onto the "bed".

"All right doctor brewer," prot said, using my full name to let me know he was being serious. "I will tell you everything I know. And I will explain the gaps in my responses to you.

"Let me first reiterate what I said on Earth. The vogons are interstellar contractors. They do a job and they get paid for it. If they weren't getting paid, EARTH wouldn't be a second thought in their mind. If you want to learn more about the vogons, that Guide will tell you far more than I could. This is the truth gene. We dremers have not been able to get near the vogon WORLD without one of them catching our mirror beam and sending it right back to K-PAX. We took the hint and stopped going.

"The Galactic Government formed eons ago, before the first of dremer's many progenitors crawled from the dirt. K-PAX once received an invite into this government, but as you can imagine…"

"Dremers don't believe in a government," I finished for him.

"Nor do many other races. This much I have told you and it is true. The Galactic Government is made up of a minority of races, some who have never made it past the E-classification. But of those minorities there are many and they are vast and they pretty much control the entire GALAXY. The council, which governs the Galactic Government determines where parts of the Interstellar Highway go. This is the space between planets and star systems that ships can safely travel along if they want to avoid crashing into something.

"K-PAX for the most part, along with FLORA, NOLL, TERSEPION, and a few other planets in the upper alphabetic echelon does not participate nor do we believe in this government and the way it does things. We believe that to destroy a planet for the convenience of others is utterly stupid and selfish. But alas EARTH, along with countless other worlds with far more advanced cultures than your own, has met their fate at the hands of the vogons, or any other number of urban renewal methods in this GALAXY."

"Well, can't you petition to stop this Government?" I asked.

"Of course. But you know as well as anyone how much red tape a government needs to operate," prot said this last bit with his patented brand of snobbery. "And we K-PAXians have attempted to stop the Government at every turn, but since we don't act as full participants in their activities sometimes we're ignored entirely. The nollians have an active seat in the Galactic Government, they're more adaptive than most. They too try to prevent needless destruction, but they're one voice among many. And when the majority wants something the minority, as you know, suffers."

"All right, I understand that. And I take it the minority is speaking for us now?"

"Yes. Everyone else wants this bypass to go through, and unfortunately you guys are smack dab in the middle of it."

"Isn't there any other way it can go?" I asked. "Maybe between Earth and Mars? Perhaps right around the system?"

"Part of the Interstellar Highway all ready passes through this system." Prot said. "As is it can be very difficult just to get a window between here and K-PAX because it has to be coordinated between the times when the high way is most heavily used and the times when it's dead. Are you with me now?"

I took a deep breath. If I hadn't seen prot and the others mirror beaming right in front of me, I doubt I'd have such a good handle on this now. And aside from the wet pants (which were really beginning to bother me by now) I gave myself a pat on the back for holding up as well as I did. "I think so. Accept, why didn't you tell me about the Galactic Government? I would have believed you."

"You thought I was a secondary persona in a multiple along with robert," prot pointed out. "It was hard enough trying to convince you of otherwise. Then to tell you and steve, and the others that there's this huge Galactic Government that is even more pointless and twice as destructive as any of the governments on your PLANET?"

"All right. I guess I see your point there. You were trying to get help for robert and you needed us focusing on that and not on you."

"Exactly. Also, as you put it, we dremers do not believe in the concept of a government. You believe in god, is this correct?"

"Yes, but I don't see-"

"And you are a christian right?"

I nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Well, how many of your children know about the jewish religion when you don't share their same beliefs?"

"My children knew of other religions long ago, prot," I said, almost defensively. "Karen was Presbyterian herself and we didn't believe in forcing our kids to follow one specific faith. But I guess I see your point."

"Well, we have about six days to stop these guys from blowing up your planet." Prot said, getting down to business. "Do you think you're ready to speak on your planet's behalf?"

"Will these vogons listen to us?" I wondered.

"To us? A dremer and a human, I doubt it," prot said. "In fact once they find us stowing away on their ship they're libel to eject us both out of the airlock, in which case I can easily mirror beam us to safety, hopefully before the coldness of space gets to me and we die of asphyxiation."

"Then why the hell did you bring us to a Vogon ship in the first place?" I demanded.

"Because I have something with me that'll make the captain of this ship think twice before killing us," prot reached into his pocket and pulled out flat red pad. "It's an order to take us straight to NOLL, where a meeting of the council will take place to determine Earth's fate."

I leaned against the bulkhead and took another deep breath. Then I looked down at the Hitch Hiker's Guide. It seemed so simple for what I gathered was a very complex and amazing device.

"How does this work?" I asked.

Prot's eyes lit up as he got up and sat beside me.

"Well gene, it's the ultimate repository for universal knowledge and information. Advice, information, and individual accounts from the various contributors going back to the earliest stages of life in the UNIVERSE are all right at the touch of a button."

"But how can it all be in English?" I asked, just now comprehending our place in the grand scheme of things. "Humans are so very new to the world and English isn't much older."

"You got me there geno. Mostly all this does is organize the thoughts and writings of millions of travelers and writers and assigns the most english sounding word to describe it. You might only understand the very recent entries of the last two or three million years. And whatever you don't understand some person from france, egypt, or some other country on your WORLD could probably translate for you. Either way it's better to have it and need it than to not have it at all…and you do need it out here. Every hitchhiker does."

"But I'm not a hitchhiker prot."

"Well gene, we stuck a thumb out, we got a ride aboard an alien space craft and you're going to have to do it again a few dozen times over…if you're going to get back home that is. I'd say you've been slapped with the label myself."

My face fell. "You won't be mirror beaming me back?"

"Lets cross that bridge when we come to it okay."

We spent the next half hour or so in silence. My digital watch stopped working, which concerned me, but fortunately the analogous hands were working perfectly. The smell of my clothes was beginning to get to me and I asked prot if there was anything I could do about it.

"None of the crew have clothes that would fit you," prot said. "I wouldn't worry about it personally. It'll smell worse in the captain's quarters when we're finally brought to meet him. See, if you humans didn't constantly wear the skins and furs of other beings you'd never have to worry about it. Plus, most of you confined yourselves to relieving yourselves in specific little rooms and porcelain devices, which only serve to pollute and destroy the water anyhow. If you stuck to just going wherever you were in your travels you'd actually be contributing to the planet's eco system instead of destroying it."

I didn't want to get into a huge discussion about the bathroom habits of my species. Not that prot and I hadn't discussed worse, but I just didn't feel it would pass the time as well. So I took a closer look at the guide.

Not sure of what to do I pushed a button at random. The title screen faded and a menu bar showed up on the screen. There was a white blank bar at the top of the screen, kind of like an Internet search engine with a cursor waiting for me to tell it what to type. Out of curiosity I typed in the word K-PAX.

A list of about forty-million entries appeared on the screen, and I doubted I'd live long enough to get to the bottom of it as I used the down scroll button. I found an entry from a traveler on his first encounter with a dremer. It was terribly translated, and it read more like an Internet post filled with terrible grammar and jargon, but I understood it well enough. I shall try to translate it for the readers below:

_Star log entry 334201.SovaEve_

_The creature calls herself sot. Sot claims she has used a beam of light to bring her from a planet in the western spiral of the Galaxy called K-PAX. At first sot seemed reasonable enough and she took me to many of the destinations on my list without me having to spend a single yark on ship fuel and travel expenses._

_Sot is a devoted herbivore and passes judgment on anyone who eats meat. This did not bother me at first but she's getting to the point where she is angering several high ranking officials on many planets. I am growing irritated and gradually annoyed with the way she forces her philosophy upon people, whether they ask for it or not._

I couldn't help but break out laughing. Prot seemed confused, and I wondered if I should explain it or not.

"You dremers aren't very popular are you?" I asked, pointing out the entry.

Prot seemed indignant for the first time in his life.

"No. We aren't."

"Oh, don't take it personally prot. I think it's funny that your people are so consistent."

"The Elcevian in this article was the last of a dying race," prot said, bordering on angry. "Perhaps if they had listened to our philosophy they'd be alive now."

"Hey, is your report in here?" I asked, curious.

"As a matter of fact it is. But you won't find it under my name. Just type in B-TIK."

I did so and was surprised to see all of prot's report in perfect English. I remembered it of course because we had a translated copy of the report on file at MPI. (assuming they didn't pawn that off for cash as well)

"They even have entries about Earth too," I noticed. I read some of them and was a little disappointed. "We're obsessed with little digital watches huh?"

Prot gave me a knowing grin. I looked at my wrist and dropped the matter entirely.

"All right prot, you want me to learn this stuff myself. Here I go."

I asked about the vogons. I learned pretty much what prot all ready told me, including their penchant for poetry, which is known throughout the galaxy for its life threatening nature. These people would have been right at home on Ward 4. In fact MPI would need a whole new ward for these creatures.

With that in mind, let's be glad that my bladder was completely empty by now. Because when the door to our room whooshed open, the room would have been a wading pool.


	3. Chapter Three

Note: For those who are bothered by the constant bathroom references, let me say this. Everyone goes to the bathroom. I'm not some weird pervert who obsesses over people going, I just think it's perfectly natural to describe someone doing their business. We all ready have writers who vividly describe sexual activities, vomiting, and other things that some find disgusting. So if you're bothered by something as natural as numbers 1 and 2, I'm sorry, but it's up to you to keep reading.

Chapter Three

The Vogon guard stood in the doorway for a second. He was humanoid in appearance, but about seven feet tall, and with more hard pumped muscles than could be reasonably found on a human being.

"Keeplart hangu weldk!" He bellowed.

Prot spoke to the creature in its own language, flashing the pad in his hand. I just sat there terrified, clutching the Guide to my chest like a child clutching a teddy bear. I was ashamed by my own demeanor, wondering how prot expected a weak, jittery thing like myself to save our planet. Put me in MPI or in a quiz show devoted entirely to opera and I'm on top of everything. I've dealt with the most violent psychotics and cured the most difficult cases in MPI. But let's face it. This is the world I've worked so hard to convince others didn't exist, and I had no way of knowing how to handle it. The creature stood there, scratching its head when prot was finished.

"Wh-what are you saying?" I asked, looking from prot to the Vogon.

"He's been instructed to bring us to the captain," prot translated. "But I've shown him the order and now he's deciding whether or not he wants to yell some more or still take us to see the captain."

Evidently he wanted to do both.

"Neemar kauli togun! Blotch tu!" The guard advanced on us. Prot held up his arms and said something else in Vogonese. (What else could I call it?) The Vogon seemed to consider me for a second and then he did something resembling a shrug and picked prot up, tucking him under one arm.

"Prot!" I jumped to my feet and rushed to his aide.

"Gene, it's all right!" prot said as he was carried out the door. "I convinced him to let you stay here so you should be fine. It'll make my discussion with the captain much easier. Just sit tight and I'll come back for you in a little while."

The door slid shut and I was left a nervous wreck, pacing back and forth around the room. Now that I think about it, it was the first time I'd really looked around the room. The bed I found myself in was a flat and made of some soft yet stiff material. It looked like it could be marble or steel, and yet it wasn't as hard as either of the two substances. There were a few chairs, a kind of writing desk and near a porthole was a large gray basin with a drain. There was an inscription engraved into a beige plate above the basin, like the caution signs on transit buses and airports telling you not to throw trash into the toilet. Just to keep my mind on something, I flipped out the Guide and tried to find something on the Vogon language. I found a dictionary of sorts and tried to match the symbols on the inscription with the ones in the book.

"Do not…throw…anything…living…into the drain…" I read, looking back and forth several times as I read. "As it tends to struggle and destroy the platinum pluming."

_Nice they're so concerned, _I thought.

I sat back on the bed and did a search for Noll. I found at least five thousand entries on the planet and its people. I clicked on one that seemed most recent.

_The planet Noll has recently entered into the Galactic Government, making it the first of a legion of planets from the Western Spiral to get over its moral superiority and actually support our cause._

_Though Noll frequently rallies against blasting inhabited worlds as a part of Urban renewal, they're contributions to society at large are unsurpassed. Most notable are their communications technology, which can link two worlds several thousand light years apart. Also notable is their contribution of an intelligent form of plant life that can be trained to organize information and display it on a computer screen in exchange for light, air, food and water._

"Ha," I laughed, thinking immediately of prot. I wonder how he feels about a form of plant life you can't eat. I checked out another entry on the Nollians. This was a much more detailed entry on their evolution and included photos of the creatures. They resembled kangaroos, with long slender bodies and long tails giving them balance. They stood on two flat feet with three raking claws, and their arms were about half the length of my own. Their hands reminded me of the velociraptor's from Jurassic Park, accept there was an opposable thumb, which the Nollian in the photo used to hold some kind of hammer-like tool. Large bat-like ears covered their eyes and necks, which I guessed served as protection from their intensely bright sun. They had two beady black eyes on either side of a triangular head that ended in a camel-like snout. They were fascinating to look at, and like the Vogon who didn't speak English, it dispersed a lot of theories about aliens looking like humans.

Prot once said, "I look like you because it is the most energy efficient configuration." But who said the human form was the same configuration for the entire galaxy? After all, he did say once, "If you can imagine it, it exists, somewhere out there."

I read more entries on the living computer that the early entry spoke of.

_The Living Computer, as it is called by many, is one of the most advanced forms of plant life in the known galaxy. While it doesn't seem to boast of any real intelligence, there is evidence to suggest that it may very well respond to the emotions of those around it. Once it is wired into a computer system, users tend to find that if they get angry and loose their temper with the device, its performance slows down. On the other hand, if users treat their living computers with respect and love the computer runs long and far._

_In edition to emotional needs, the living computer has the same energy requirements of other plant life. It requires exposure to solar energy, natural or artificial, frequent amounts of water, and food. (preferably fertilizer from its home planet, but it's been known to accept other forms of plant food.) Oxygen is also necessary, therefore it is recommended that living computers be left in the ship's hydroponics garden, or out in the open when on a planet._

_Noll will gladly hand out these living computers for free as that is their way (however misguided it is), but in the Galactic market the cuttings alone can go away for as high as twenty million Galactic bucks per unit._

"Fascinating," I remarked. Earth biologists would be fascinated with these living computers for centuries…that is if the Earth still existed in a few centuries.

As I read the Guide I felt a sudden lurch in the ship. The gravity in the cabin changed for a moment and I was struck with a sudden nausea. I placed the Guide down-then I thought better of leaving it around and put it in my pocket. Even a queasy stomach wasn't enough to make me forsake such a precious little item- and knelt near the basin. I didn't know if I was going to vomit or not, but it was better to be prepared this time than to have another messy accident.

I remained there for what felt like hours while the gravity adjusted itself to some outside stimulus I didn't understand. A few times it felt like I was ready to vomit, and then it just tapered back down. I tried to ignore the smell of my pants because that wasn't making it any better.

The door slid open. I looked up and prot walked in with what looked like a large metal case, the kind they put money or jewels in.

"Great news geno!" he said, cheerfully as ever. "We're not going to be the latest addition to millions and millions of individual pieces of space junk."

"I'm grateful prot," I replied sardonically. "What's in the suitcase?"

"Some things you need. A few new pieces of clothes, some food to keep you going, and more importantly a towel."

"A towel?"

"Right in the guide geno. Never forget your towel. All hitchhikers need towels because for one, you never know when you're going to need it. And two, if someone out there sees you with your towel they're more libel to trust you because they'll see you have your head on straight. Anyone with enough sense to bring a towel in the event they might need it has to be someone worth getting to know."

I shook my head and asked prot to give me some privacy. He might not have minded stripping to his boxers or getting completely naked in front of others but I had my New England sense of privacy to maintain. When he turned around I gratefully stripped out of all my clothes and opened up the suitcase. Prot verbally explained most of the items in there, like the Hyginaray. It was compact and shaped like an electric razor, and when I turned it on it emitted a small red beam that supposedly killed off all of the harmful bacteria and mold on my body. Another setting of the beam cleared up any skin irritation I felt. The clothes were another matter. If anyone on Earth had been caught wearing them they'd have been locked up for certain, but here I was trying on an alien outfits (One small step for man one giant leap for men's fashions I suppose) with all kinds of weird colors and flashy metallic buttons. There were a few extra snug pairs of underpants ("Just in case," prot said with his usual dry sense of humor) a pair of khaki-like pants and a blazer that looked like a ten-year old's first tie dye project. Everything fit remarkably well, but when I looked at myself in the mirror I looked like a reject from a Woodstock concert.

"You'll have to ditch your old clothes," prot said. "They'll only bog you down."

"Makes sense I guess."

I took the Guide from my old pants pocket and found a breast pocket on my new blazer. Then I asked prot what was happening now.

"We're changing course and heading to NOLL as planned. The EARTH is still scheduled to be destroyed in one week but we're on our way to negotiate preventing its destruction. By the way, when we get to the planet you'll be on your own for a little while as I have to leave to go and get you off of EARTH."

"Heh? But-you just got me off of-"

"Confusing isn't it?" prot asked, giving me his Cheshire cat grin. "I had to grab you and then go back in time one week so you could negotiate the fate of your PLANET. If I don't go to you in exactly one week from now I'll have never run into you at mpi and you would never have gotten off the PLANET."

I took a few deep breaths before I made my observation. For all I knew no matter what I said prot would just keep dropping bombshells like this in my lap.

"Okay prot, let's say you have to keep doing this each time. Going back a week and pulling me and Will off of Earth. If we keep Earth from getting destroyed then you would never have had to come to Earth and then I would never learn about the Galactic Federation or anything like that."

"Not entirely true." Prot said. "When you save the PLANET a whole new timeline will be created, and this week will never have existed. Time will continue to move forward for you and neither you, nor your family, nor I will not notice the changes and the only thing that will be different is the interstellar highway will go through some other place in the UNIVERSE."

I didn't understand it no matter how he put it so I stopped asking. Lets face it, I could play the part of psychiatrist all I wanted. Filling in the holes in the patient's delusion, convincing him that he was delusional and that he had a lapse in reality but I had to be the realistic one this time. I didn't know how this universe really worked, and this time it was prot trying to keep me at ease. So far he'd done everything possible to try and make me comfortable about all this, even getting me clothes and food. For crying out loud the man saved me and my family I didn't even thank him properly.

"You've been a great friend prot," I said, sincerely. "I really do thank you for all that you've done for us."

"Aw, now geno it was nothing. You and your family treated me like a welcome friend and not just some harmful lunatic out of MPI. Letting EARTH and all those little beings, both furry and hairless get destroyed like that would be almost like destroying my second home in the UNIVERSE."

The time passed slowly. Prot had warned me about venturing out of the cabin, telling me that the captain threatened to read some of his poetry to me if I was caught. So we remained in the cabin, eating and sleeping. The food wasn't bad. Fruits and vegetables like prot's typical diet.

"Some of these came from around the GALAXY," prot explained as he helped me open the ration container. "I've used the ship's biological scanners to determine their safety. Fortunately since a dremer has similar biological components to homo sapiens you should be fine with whatever I can eat."

"That's not entirely true, prot," I pointed out. "You've eaten berries on Earth that are poisonous to humans. And all those apple seeds you've eaten, I'm surprised you never keeled over."

Prot shrugged.

"Apple seeds have a very small amount of cyanide. You'd have to eat a lot of them in handfuls before you'd even start to get sick. My body always eliminated the poison before it became an issue. And incidentally with all of the pesticides used to kill off harmless tiny beings I'm even more amazed that you humans do not keel over more."

"Oh prot, you know we've died from much worse."

"So true geno. So true."

I picked up a hard and yellowish fruit. It was dry and had an odd consistency that reminded me of ramen noodles right out of the package. It was practically flavorless and it left my mouth dry. Then I munched on several berries that prot called "manga" berries from a planet he called M-REN. There was a very large and sweet fruit called a pola, which was purple with green lines, and almost one third the size of a watermelon. Prot and I split one in half since there was no way I could finish it on my own.

Not long after my stomach began to grumble and I was distressed to find that the basin was our only source of plumbing for now. There was no way to flush, and basically it was a round thin rim, so sitting on it too long would could cut the circulation in my legs off. I had such a need that holding it wasn't an option, so I arranged my self as comfortably as I could and let it go. Prot didn't even bother looking up, and from what I understood of his life on K-PAX I wasn't too embarrassed either way.

"It's perfectly natural gene," prot said simply. "When you gotta go, you gotta go."

"You know this sort of reminds me of my first time in Japan," I said. "The toilets there are mostly built into the floor you know."

"Many native tribes use latrines far away from the water source." Prot explained. "We dremers never worried about such pointless trivialities anyway. We eat and we poop. The poop is so enriched with nutrients from the vegetation and fruits that we eat that it actually nurtures the ground and bigger better vegetables grow in it. Most beings throughout the GALAXY choose this largely uninhibited fashion."

"You mean dremers never try to squat beside a tree?" I asked, grunting a little.

Prot grinned.

"Only if it's convenient geno."

"Well when you got to Earth it must have been tough to have to suddenly hold it until an appropriate time."

"A little," prot admitted. "But the beauty part with Earth is that it's such a big place that there's always a place to go. Plus humans are very skiddish about their privacy and what they like to see, so I got used to using toilets fairly quickly. Robert needed to show me everything at first, and it was real fun listening to the flushing sound of the drain pipes. It wasn't until someone on K-PAX explained to me the dangers of using a system like that that I began to dislike it. Toilet paper is a good idea, on the other hand, since it can break down and return to the soil."

I didn't see the harm in asking, and frankly it took my mind off of things, so I didn't hold back. "Well, how did you clean up afterwards without toilet paper?"

There was the Cheshire cat grin again. "Usually a few leaves do the trick. Otherwise we just go around and not worry about it. Dremer fecal matter doesn't smell that bad anyway and we don't have that much water to begin with so we're not familiar with the "constantly fresh" feeling that you humans have come to love.

We spent most of the time talking about alien bathroom habits. I still had quite a ways to go before I was done so I just sat there and did my best to remain comfortable. Eventually prot had to use it as well and we just at side by side as comfortable with each other's presence as brothers.

I cleaned myself up using the hygeneray, which wasn't a bad improvement on the old fashioned way. Then I spent the next few hours in sleep, dreaming of my good old planet Earth.


End file.
